The Walking Dead Showrunner Just Shot Down A Popular Fan Theory

Spoilers from this week’s The Walking Dead in this article, obviously.

While most people are busy wondering exactly what’s happened to Glenn in the Walking Dead universe, Sunday’s episode also featured a plot with Rick that’s been pretty interesting. After possibly touching a zombie-blood infested machete, many viewers believed that Rick Grimes might finally lose his hand, similar to the comics. However, showrunner Scott M.Gimple is now stating that Rick’s hand is not going to be up on the chopping block. Here’s what he had to say:

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say something definitive: Rick is OK regarding that cut. His hand will survive. There will be a bandage. There will be some ointment involved. But he’s going to walk away from it.

If you’ve been keeping tabs on the status of Rick’s hand, the fact that Rick will be keeping his appendage should probably not be a huge surprise. Just a few weeks ago, actor Andrew Lincoln admitted he had campaigned hard to lose his hand on the show, to little avail. Unfortunately, since Rick is the biggest presence on the show and is in the most scenes, it just wasn’t fiscally feasible for the team to use special effects to make Rick’s hand disappear for every episode in perpetuity.

Gimple, did, however, confirm to TV Line that the fan theory regarding the plausibility of getting infected by a walker blood-infested weapon is possible.

It’s entirely possible, but we haven’t really gotten into it on the show.

Unfortunately for fans that thought they had caught a huge clue, it’s just not what happened during Sunday’s episode. Which is a shame, because losing a hand would be a great high-stakes plot that would still keep Rick around but would cause him new challenges. During the episode, Rick took on a zombie with a machete already sticking out of its neck. Rick then pushed on the walker while attempting to stab it, and ended up cutting his hand in the process. Obviously, the injury seemed to be bothering the character after the encounter, leading fans to speculate that walker blood had been present on the machete and that Rick was going to have to get his hand chopped off to save his life. Obviously, that was a red herring, but what a darned good red herring it was.

Although other people involved with the show have been a little less straightforward with their Rick’s hand answers, I’m kind of glad this isn’t something I need to be mulling over until next Sunday’s episode airs. Now, as for the Glenn theories, the jury’s still out. Tune in to find out what happens next when The Walking Dead airs on Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET, only on AMC.